The world's top handset maker Nokia expects its sophisticated Series 60 software for smartphones to appear in more medium-priced phones in 2007 due to lower manufacturing costs, company officials said.
"Rising volumes open increasingly more opportunities as they are lowering component prices and the total bill-of-materials," Matti Vanska, vice president at Nokia's technology platforms business, told Reuters.
So far, high costs have limited the spread of the S60 operating system to pricey smartphones which run computer-like applications such as video, music, graphics, word processors, spreadsheets, email and mobile TV.
But the spread of such functions to cheaper phones could boost sales for the Finnish company, as customers looking for a good camera or music player, previously put off by prices of well over 500 euros ($634) for top models, could now be able to afford them.
MARKET LEADER: Nokia's S60 operating system, built on Symbian software, is used in 51 percent of smartphones, according to research firm Canalys. Other Symbian-based operating systems have 22 percent of the market, while Microsoft has 11 percent of the market, RIM 7 percent and Linux 6 percent.
Symbian is a UK-based mobile phone software venture in which Nokia, Ericsson and Sony Ericsson together hold 76.6 percent. Other shareholders are Panasonic, Samsung, Siemens.
NOKIA SAYS JOINT 3G PHONE PROJECT ON TRACK: A joint project to develop a blueprint of a smartphone for fast 3G networks bySymbian, Freescale, Nokia and Elektrobit is on schedule, a senior official at Nokia said.
"This is significant to all parties involved and it is on plan," Matti Vanska, vice president at Nokia's technology platforms business, told Reuters.
"The aim is to finish it next year," he said.
British-based mobile phone software venture Symbian, US chip maker Freescale, the world's largest cellphone maker Nokia and Finnish electronics firm Elektrobit announced the joint project in February.
Symbian, which is jointly owned by some of the world's biggest mobile phone makers including Nokia, the main buyer of its software, said it expected handsets based on its "reference design" in the first half of 2007.
The design, based on Freescale's single 3G phone chip, which will have Nokia's S60 software integrated into it, is set to open the market for mobile phone producers that currently lack the engineering strength to develop models on their own.
Smartphones can run computer-like applications such as video, music, graphics, word processors, spreadsheets, email and mobile TV.
NOKIA SAYS NO NEED FOR UNIFIED EU MOBILE TV BAND: Nokia said on October 05 that there was no need for a single radio frequency for mobile television across the European Union and said the Commission's plan for an interim solution was unrealistic.
Last week regulators and industry leaders said at an i2010 telecoms conference in Finland that Europe is slightly ahead of other continents in developing mobile TV, but lack of a joint radio spectrum for the service means it may lose its leadership.
The industry is hoping national regulators will allocate in total 32 megahertz for mobile television from the UHF range (470-750 megahertz) currently used for television broadcasts, but in some countries the airwaves are crowded, making it hard to find the channels.
N92 READY, WAITING FOR NETWORK: Nokia has unveiled its first DVB-H phone, the N92 model, and promised to start selling them in summer of 2006. But so far the lack of a commercial network has delayed the introduction.
"The launch of N92 depends on the network. When the N92 is ready, Nokia is ready," Kamarainen said.
DVB-H is an agreed standard for mobile television, but the way content is protected against piracy can differ between DVB-H networks. Some 70 million DVB-H phones are expected to be sold globally by 2010, according to research firm Informa.
Kamarainen expects many different TV phones from all vendors, and TV technology to become as standard on phones. "In five years it will be one part of the volume business. And when it is in a mass market - its share of total price of the product is not a problem."
Even though television programmes have a local or at best national viewer base, which means international roaming is not as relevant as it is to mobile telephony, vendors still need a limited range of technology and spectrum options to be able to build cheap digital television tuners into mobile devices.
There are currently half a dozen mobile TV technologies, which work in many different parts of the frequency band.
NOKIA SAYS SUPPLIES CORE GSM NETWORK IN PERU: Mobile technology firm Nokia said on October 05 that it had supplied a core GSM network to Telefonica Moviles Peru.
Nokia said it was also providing network planning and optimisation services, training and operations support for six months under the contract. The Finnish-based company gave no financial details of the deal.
Telefonica Moviles Peru, a unit of Spain's Telefonica Moviles, has launched its service under the brand "movistar Peru".
Nokia unveils new short-range wireless technology. Mobile phone market leader Nokia unveiled a new short-range wireless connection on October three that is smaller and more energy-efficient than current Bluetooth technology and can be used in devices such as watches.
The new radio technology, dubbed "Wibree", can work alongside Bluetooth short-range wireless connections but use just a fraction of the power.
"It's up to 10 times more energy efficient than Bluetooth," Bob Iannucci, head of Nokia Research Center, said. Nokia said it had worked five years to develop the technology and would put it through a standardisation process along with a number of other wireless technology firms. When Wibree has become a standard, the technology is available to anyone at the same reasonable terms.
"Our aim is to establish an industry standard faster than ever before by offering an interoperable solution that can be commercialised and incorporated into products as quickly as possible," Ianucci said.
Like Bluetooth - used to link cell phones with headsets, computers and printers to transfer calls, calendar items, documents, songs and pictures - Wibree provides a radio link of up to 10 metres (30 feet) between devices.
Because of their small size and low energy consumption, Wibree radio chips will make it possible and efficient to connect phones and other electronics devices to low-power watches or sports sensors and health monitors.
Nokia said it expected the first commercial version to be available during the second quarter of next year. Nokia expects that devices currently connected by Bluetooth will get a dual Bluetooth-Wibree chip, while devices that are currently not connected will use a Wibree-only chip.
Likely Wibree-devices include watches, wireless keyboards, toys and sports sensors. "This technology increases the growth potential in these market segments," Nokia said.
Comments
Comments are closed.